Rethink First
'Rethinking' Corporate Wellness

According to the Center for Disease Control, 450 million individuals under the age of 21 from across the globe have developmental disabilities. On the other hand, this population has access to only 30,000 board-certified behavioral therapists, who are mostly located in the U.S. The low ratio brings up a major concern—how to make care accessible and affordable to individuals across the globe? Rethink believes that the answer to this vital question lies in training each caregiver to deliver best-practice treatment.

In conversation with CIO Applications, Daniel A. Etra, CEO of Rethink, a behavioral health solution provider, shares first-hand insights on the industry challenges and how his firm is striving to set the score straight.

Please provide us with an overview of your company.

Rethink is one of the leading behavioral health technology companies in the world, focused on autism and related disorders. The genesis of our company was a natural progression for us to bridge the gap between an exploding population of individuals with such disorders and the significant dearth of trained professionals available to deliver best-practice treatment. Rethink combines a proven treatment approach—Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA)—medically recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) with a proven method of instruction—video modeling. The efficient model resides on an infinitely scalable, web-based platform and works toward automating clinical workflow to ensure that care delivery is aligned with best practices.

Rethink offers a single integrated behavioral health platform to train staff catering to the needs of people with developmental disabilities, create an intervention plan, and measure the outcomes and progress of the person receiving treatment. The automation of data tracking and progress reporting on the back-end improves the efficacy of our solution. In addition, our solution can be used to monitor the treatment of individuals across the globe, while delivering helpful insights to everyone who interacts with them at school, home, and in the healthcare ecosystem. Our platform-agnostic solution can be utilized from a multitude of devices, making it widely accessible.

Tell us about the Rethink platform and its feature set. How does it improve the life of users?

Rethink utilizes the clinical best-practice treatment approach to aid caregivers in catering to the specific requirements of those with a developmental disability in their care. The train-the-trainer model adopted by Rethink brings in video modeling to instruct caregivers and provides them with clinical workflow automation tools to create an individualized treatment program for the person being cared for as well as measure their progress by tracking outcomes automatically.

By using the Rethink platform, caregivers are made aware of the skill deficiencies of their dependents, possible clinical best practice methods of treating those deficiencies, and ways to monitor progress. Our full suite of software tools, training, and clinical supports allow the caregiver to effectively and scalably implement intervention.

How can the Rethink platform be utilized in the education system to benefit students with special needs?

As one of the leading behavioral health technology companies, we stand apart with our dedication to serve a population with developmental disabilities like autism. The public school system suffers from a lack of trained professionals who can attend to a large and growing population of students with developmental disabilities like autism. We provide a one-stop special needs management platform for clients, combining all the elements of professional development, training, intervention planning, data tracking and reporting, behavioral management, and social-emotional learning support. Our solution set equips front-line educators with the knowledge and tools to identify and meet the requirements of students with special needs using a single software platform, while simultaneously ensuring that the class functions uninterruptedly.

Since special-needs students cannot be subjected to standardized testing, school district administrators and staff often have difficulty in monitoring their progress. The Rethink platform makes it possible to capture data on special needs students, measure it, and provides visibility on their progress whenever required.

How does the Rethink platform find application in the corporate sector?

The poor mental health of employees is one of the leading causes of low workplace productivity. Employees caring for dependents with developmental disabilities often carry their stress and anxiety into the workplace, which affects their productivity. Rethink brings in an effective and customized platform that puts clinical best practice treatment solutions at the employees’ fingertips. Employees are empowered with the tools and training to manage the treatment of their dependents, understand, teach and communicate better with them. In addition, we provide clinical supports and the ability for employees and their families to reach out to trained clinicians during emergencies. The platform boosts employee productivity by equipping them with tools and supports that might not be available or affordable to their dependents through the healthcare system. Our client organizations are often viewed as employers of choice in the corporate world, who genuinely care about the complete well-being of employees and their families.

Can you share a case study or success story where you helped a client in attaining what they wanted?

Costco, a large retailer with stores in multiple geographic locations, has employees caring for dependents with developmental disabilities. These employees at Costco stores often have difficulty finding behavioral therapists and medical resources for their families, often waiting for months or even years for the same. When the Rethink platform was deployed and made available to employees in all locations, letters of appreciation poured in to the company’s president, thanking him for offering the Rethink program and noting what a difference it made in their lives.

What do you envision for the future of Rethink First?

On the educational front, Rethink is rolling out a suite of social and emotional learning products to help school districts. The products aim to bring mental health issues to the fore and aid in addressing problems like the impact of school bullying, as well as prevent tragedies such as the occurrence of school shootings.

Organizational employers will benefit from our upcoming neurodiversity platform, a suite of training tools and clinical support measures that extend beyond employees with a dependent having a developmental disability and cater to employees with neurodiverse conditions in the workplace. In addition, Rethink aims to continue its global expansion and enable people from across the world to benefit from our solution.